Circling the Square

One raw day in April 1950, Yard cop John Fitzgerald discovered a nondescript band of students inside the subterranean steam tunnels. Knowing his duty, he chased them--all the way from Adams House to Lowell. When he discovered that they were only members of the Harvard Outing Club on a guided tour, he began to leave. But he had gone too far and promptly lost his way. The HOC had to lead him out.

Officer Fitzgerald was not the only man to wander down the wrong tunnel in the steam tunnel maze; his rescuers themselves had at one time fallen behind and temporarily lost their way. Like the layout of University buildings themselves, the tunnels were designed on a cowpath basis.

After the University had put up Widener Library and several of the "Freshman dormitories" like Smith and Gore Halls (now part of Kirkland House), the discovery was made that the existing heating plants--which amounted to nothing more than a separate furnace in every building--could not cope with the new heating demands. So, University officials opened negotiations in 1914 with the City of Cambridge for the use of surplus steam generated by the Boston Elevated power house, located where Eliot House now stands. On March 3, 1914 the Cambridge Board of Aldermen granted Harvard permission to construct a steam tunnel to Smith and Gore Halls and from there snake up Holyoke Street across Mt. Auburn and up Linden Street to connect with Widener. There were unpalatable strings attached, however, requiring that the City do all the constructional work at the University's cost.

A 1914 issue of the CRIMSON applauded anyway: "It would eliminate much of the smoke and teaming of ashes in the Yard." The cost came to around $120,000.

As the University spread, steam tunnel construction had to keep pace. In the late twenties, the Buildings and Grounds Department had dug up most of the Yard and were setting in new tunnels. For a while Memorial Hall periodically belched puffs of steam as construction went ahead. The University had already bought the old Elevated power plant and had torn it down; steam came from the boilers of the Cambridge Gas and Electric Company, five blocks toward Boston on Memorial Drive.

The steam tunnels comprise about three and one-half miles which hold over 25 miles of piping and thousands of gauges. Most of the tunnels are the "walk-through" variety--seven feet high and eight wide. There are smaller branch lines and two foot square conduits as well. The "walk-throughs" include at least two spots along the main route that are a claustrophobe's nightmare. The first is crossing Massachusetts Avenue on the way to the Houses. The tunnel height suddenly becomes three feet thanks to the shallowness of the Rapid Transit below; the traveler must hoist himself up a ladder and onto a rickety wooden cart, pulling himself across by a rope. Below rumbles the Rapid Transit, and above, the Massachusetts Avenue traffic.

The other spot is over the Charles River, on the way to the Business School. Within the Weeks Bridge is a special tunnel hollowed out for tunnelgoers. Often the clearance is not more than 28 inches, and the several arches and ramps do not make the trip any more comfortable.

However, this is merely routine for the seventy-two maintenance men who take care of the tunnels around the clock in three shifts. They must check all the instruments, the sixty-five charts, and the miles of piping daily. Beyond steam pipes, they must take care of inter-University phone pipe lines, pipes to recapture condensed water from the steam, and pipes to carry the compressed air that runs the thermostats. WHRB also has a few of its own pipes in the tunnels, carrying coaxial cables that are spliced in with the Houses' electrical systems.

The maintenance crew from the University and the few technicians for WHRB may know their way around the tunnels, but for anyone else it is next to impossible. Lately the Department of Buildings and Grounds has been discouraging guided tours; it is too easy to get lost in the labyrinth.